Thursday, November 5, 2009

From Ant123: "David, If you could look back and report on something it would really help provide a clearer picture about our defense. In Richt's first four years here, what percentages of turnovers in our territory led to fieldgoals, touchowns, or nothing. Then do the same then for the last 3 years and compare."

Ask and you shall receive...

First, I couldn't get drive charts for 2001, so I had to throw that out in terms of in-depth analysis. If anyone knows where I can find the full drive charts, I'll be happy to update the stats down the road.

Anyway, one of the main explanations for the defense's struggles this season has been the high turnovers. It makes some sense. Georgia has turned the ball over a lot, and the D has been put in some bad positions. But do turnovers really have that big of an impact overall? Let's look at it by year:

Year

Turnovers

Points/Game

2001

20

18.91

2002

23

15.14

2003

18

14.50

2004

19

16.50

2005

18

16.38

2006

31

17.62

2007

17

20.15

2008

19

24.54

2009

34*

29.38

*Note: Georgia has 21 turnovers so far this season, which would put the Dawgs on pace for 34 through 13 games.

So what do we learn?

From 2001-2005, there was little serious change in the number of turnovers by the offense or the overall points allowed by the defense. In 2006, Willie Martinez and the Georgia D probably deserved an award for their work. Turnovers increased a whopping 72 percent, but scoring only went up by a little more than a point per game.

But it's what happened in 2007 and beyond that seems to ruffle the most feathers among fans. In 2007 and 2008, the turnover numbers were essentially right where they were during the heyday of Brian Van Gorder's administration, but the points allowed increased by a noticeable sum.

But the truth is, even 2007 wasn't that bad. While scoring increased almost four points per game from Van Gorder's last season in 2004 to Martinez's third season in 2007, things had changed throughout the SEC. Yes, Georgia allowed more points per game, but the Dawgs still ranked third in the SEC in scoring defense. Everyone was scoring more.

So really, it's only been the past two seasons that have been dramatically worse for Georgia's defense -- but it is most definitely worse. This season, the Dawgs are allowing 13 more points per game than they did during their last SEC championship season. Of course, they're also turning the ball over a whole lot more, too. So let's look closer at things on a play-by-play basis.

(Note: "Stops" is any drive that ends in a punt, end of half, safety or a turnover on downs.)

Year

Turnovers

%TDs

%FGAs

%TOs

%Stops

2002

23

31%

19%

7%

44%

2003

18

17%

28%

11%

44%

2004

19

32%

21%

5%

42%

2005

18

33%

11%

11%

44%

2006

31

33%

13%

20%

33%

2007

17

23%

18%

18%

42%

2008

19

53%

6%

6%

33%

2009

21

52%

24%

0%

24%

From 2002-2007, there was very little change in how the defense played following a turnover. In every one of those years, Georgia held firm on between 47 and 60 percent of all drives following a turnover. But in the past two years, the number of touchdowns allowed has gone up by 20 percent, while the number of stops has dropped by nearly that much. This year, the opposition scores (or at least kicks a field goal) following 76% of all turnovers.

Looking deeper at the individual drives, During the three years under Van Gorder, Georgia allowed only 10 drives of 30 or more yards following a turnover, and just four of 50 or more yards. Essentially, if Georgia's turnover occurred on the opposition's side of the field, it didn't really matter. On the other side, Van Gorder's D held the opposition to 10 yards or fewer following a turnover on 28 occasions -- i.e., not so much as a first down.

That's a trend Martinez's defenses carried over for the most part in the next three seasons, too. In the past two seasons, however, those numbers have changed. Of the 40 turnovers, opposition has been held to less than 10 yards just 13 times.

In short, when turnovers have happened, it's been more likely that the opposition would keep that momentum going in the past two years.

Of course, the obvious question is: Why?

For the first three years of his career as defensive coordinator, Willie Martinez appeared to be every bit as successful -- and maybe more successful -- than Van Gorder at limiting the damage that turnovers caused. Did he suddenly forget how to keep his defense motivated? Or did his players suddenly get much worse at handling adversity?

Well, there are also degrees of adversity, and as it turns out, Georgia's D has been a bit further behind the 8 ball recently. Of all the turnovers Georgia has had, check out the percentages of those that have occurred inside its own 35-yard line.

Year

TOs

%<35

2002

23

47

2003

18

39

2004

19

47

2005

18

44

2006

31

29

2007

17

41

2008

19

53

2009

21

67

It has only been the past two years that the opponent has started more than half its post-turnover drives already in field-goal range. (Those numbers include pick-sixes, too.) This year, the D has been put in an almost impossible situation, with the opponent in scoring range before it even takes a snap two-thirds of the time.

So has Martinez suddenly forgotten how to rally his troops after a particularly bad play? Perhaps, a little. But the bigger issue is that the offense has set the D up to fail on a far more routine basis this season (and, to a lesser degree, last).

That doesn't necessarily explain the big increases in opponent scoring overall, but it's certainly a real factor. And situations like that have a lasting ripple effect beyond any eventual scoring. It changes field position. It forces the D to be on the field longer. It may cause the offense to adjust its strategy to play catch-up more. All things that work against the overall success of the team.

Obviously there's more that has gone wrong in Athens than just this, but Mark Richt is probably right when he says that, if the Bulldogs could simply cut down on those killer turnovers, things might look a good bit different.

2 comments:

David, First thanks for the great job in reporting this. It is great to have a truely interactive reporter that responds and always goes above and beyond. There were two things that jumped out at me. 1. "During the three years under Van Gorder, Georgia allowed only 10 drives of 30 or more yards following a turnover, and just four of 50 or more yards. Essentially, if Georgia's turnover occurred on the opposition's side of the field, it didn't really matter. On the other side, Van Gorder's D held the opposition to 10 yards or fewer following a turnover on 28 occasions -- i.e., not so much as a first down." 2."It has only been the past two years that the opponent has started more than half its post-turnover drives already in field-goal range. (Those numbers include pick-sixes, too.) This year, the D has been put in an almost impossible situation, with the opponent in scoring range before it even takes a snap two-thirds of the time." Bottomline to me is that the offense has been particularly careless the last two years (ie. Mike Bobo), and the Vangorder defense closed the door faster on drives whether there was a tunover or not. Which, resulted in the offense either having fewer points to overcome and or starting with better field position thus having to drive a shorter distance to score. Add to that the fact that our defense in the last to years has not generated near our share of turnovers. Throw in a few penalities and you have a team that has become undisciplined the last two to three years with the things mentioned above being the result. I do not know where all the blame lies but, I do know where the responsibility to correct it lies.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Seth Emerson has been covering the SEC and Georgia (on and off) since 2002. He worked at the Albany Herald from 2002-05, then spent five years at The State in Columbia, S.C., covering South Carolina. He returned to Athens in August of 2010, only to find that David Pollack and David Greene were no longer playing for the Bulldogs. Adjustments were made. Emerson is originally from Silver Spring, Md., and graduated from Maryland in 1998 with a degree in journalism and a minor in getting lost on the way to practically everywhere. Then he spent four years at The Washington Post, covering small colleges, a couple NCAA basketball tournaments, and on one glorious day, was yelled at by Tony Kornheiser. It was probably at The Post that he also learned to write in the third person.These days he lives in Athens with his beloved and somewhat wimpy dog, Archie. Together they fight crime at night in northeast Georgia, except on nights there is no crime, in which case they sit at home, sip on white wine and watch reruns of "Mad Men."